Mind and gender

[Cognisant]

I think I may have gleaned something groundbreaking about the nature of the female mind, they get off on emotion (that’s just to say they enjoy it, to what degree depends on the individual) or perhaps it would be better to say males don’t enjoy it as they do, it's hard to explain because this is subjective and there's no universal scale of reference.

To the male mind difficulty in dating more-or-less boils down to one or more objective reasons, thus to male it can be easy to assume females are fickle, flighty creatures, which may or may not actually be true (I'm leaving this open to debate ). But what the male mind fails to understand is that to the female mind these objective measures of attractiveness/worth aren't as important as the male would perceive them to be (I’ll get back to this).

Instead the female mind favours (by comparison to males) subjective measures of attractiveness/worth, hence their fascination with emotions, and I'm not playing the "females are overly emotional" stereotype, please I know better than that, I'm suggesting they're drawn to stimuli that makes them feel. Hence why women love musicians, those weird girly-guys (e.g. Midnight Mark from "The Boat That Rocked"), angst (the "T" word, guess what I'm referring to), and y'know whats-his-name from the sailor moon anime-cartoon-thing that I swear existed for the sole purpose of toying with the girl's emotions.

(Getting back to it) Of course lets not forget this also means that to the female mind the male's must seem incredibly superficial, that's right gents, modern culture (the fashion/beauty industries) are actually our fault, well we're the root cause of it at least.

Last but not least the implications:
For my male peers here's (what I believe) may be beneficial advice, treat women like you're writing a book, that is to say you can be a the perfect suave gentleman with taste and wit to match, but if you're not engaging her emotionally you're just a textbook; forsake your pride, tell her how you feel, be honest.

 

[Jesse]

I like your point of view more than "All females are over emotional cry babies" but I think it's just society that creates this ideal for women rather than the human mind.

 

[Cognisant]

An ideal? ROFL

This isn't an ideal, it's an observation, go watch a chick-flick for fucksake.
Then go watch an action movie like Doom which personally I loved.

Tell me, which is inane?
Is it not a matter of perspective?

Of course I'm not saying all males would like Doom and that all females like chick-flicks, but there's no denying which way the numbers go.

 

[Jesse]

No doubt your right (to some extent), I just like asking the question why? Nurture or nature.

 

[shoeless]

i still think you're seriously over-simplifying this matter. i still think any generalization about "women are like this and men are like this" is seriously over-simplified.

 

[cheese]

One of the things that interests me most (and that I think might be particularly relevant) here are stories from transsexuals - at least those that have been on hormone therapy.

In the words of a person who's been a woman once and a man twice:

People completely underestimate the effect of male and female hormones. Speaking from my own experience, they affect every part of your life, physically and emotionally.

And then there is the sex. As a man, sex was a very physical and more enjoyable experience, but as a woman it was much more dependent on my mood and emotions.
As a man, I thought about sex every day, but as a woman if I hadn't had sex for a couple of months I wasn't really bothered.


Something else I found difficult to cope with were the moods and depression which I believe were caused by taking the female hormone oestrogen.
As a man, I was never depressed. If something bothered me, I would simply shrug it off and move on. As a woman, I felt as if I was on a rollercoaster of emotion.
A disagreement with a boyfriend or friend would affect my mood for days.

In all the accounts of transsexual women (ie M-to-F) I've read, taking hormones has significantly affected their mood/emotions/mental experience (and even tactile sensation) - generally through increasing the frequency and intensity of emotion. And these are people who already identify as that gender, who take hormones to establish physical change.

And the quote above is taken from a man who (apparently) did not identify as female, but was confused and rushed into surgery.

Over at the ENFP forum, the male ENFPs were discussing how they were different to their female counterparts. Despite both being Fs, the men still felt significantly less emotional and affected by emotions than the women.

I dunno. The physical environment (ie the body) really does seem to affect the mind and the way it experiences life. Another interesting fact: apparently a significant portion of transsexuals inadvertently reverses sexual orientation after transitioning (ie a physically male, 'heterosexual' person exclusively interested in females, after transitioning to female, becomes a heterosexual female - ie exclusively interested in males).

Sorry, I've sort of lost the plot here - liking emotions more? It's possible. Perhaps emotions have greater meaning to them, since they take up so much time. If this is hormonally influenced then perhaps it's true for almost all women.

But also, Thinking women are supposed to be a minority... I wonder what the hormonal differences (if any) would be between them and F women, and them and T men. Hey, this is suddenly a really intriguing question.

Hmm, but since TS people have to take hormones in excess of the amount a body would usually produce in order to counteract their own natural ones, perhaps their experiences aren't useful data. Anyway, their brain make-up would probably be different to the cisgendered person.

Generally speaking though, F men do seem less emotional F women. Less 'weepy', perhaps, and less sensitive. (T women can also seem even harder than the male stereotype though, and surely this can't be accounted for by hormones alone since some of them have extremely feminine bodies.) Is this a cultural thing?

Hey, which women are you talking about anyway? Is this just a sort of general statement about the majority of women, at least as reflected in the media and cultural archetypes?

 

[Cognisant]

You complicate things.

What's nurture, what's nature, who cares?
Am I rasing a child? No. Am I reinventing the human species? Not atm.

I understand something new, now I intend to explore how I can gain from it.

Mechanism is my truth and I am merely a Cog in the machine.
And this Cog just wants to be happy.

So here's the important questions, how do I express myself, and what aspects of myself should I express?

 

[snafupants]

Power and money and celebrity, while we are dealing in stereotypes, are also quite high on the list on female attractors. To be fair, there is a security issue there.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Power and money and celebrity, while we are dealing in stereotypes, are also quite high on the list on female attractors. To be fair, there is a security issue there.

These same types are attracted to the status-deficient man. Why? They don't feel insecure, as the person is not worried about materialistic and territorial matters. It doesn't really have anything to do with gender. It's a matter of psyche, what you like vs what you need.

 

[dark]

i still think you're seriously over-simplifying this matter. i still think any generalization about "women are like this and men are like this" is seriously over-simplified.

Over-simplifying seems to be a conditioned fear of humanity. Over-simplifying is not a bad thing, it is merely a way to look at things in a new light, to understand what could be true.
I think the fear of this comes from our need/want to be different, while paradoxially we want to know we are not alone/different.
Remember being different does not mean being unequal, nor equal. Just means different. You can not compare the number 2 with 3 without doing the same thing. To compare two completely distinct things, one must remain on the simplistic generalizations that exist in the mean of the population group. To furhter understand each group you then must dig deeper, and endangering the generalization of two, and bringing out only a subjective of one.
Don't be afraid to over-simplify, as long as it is reasonable in nature, and has evidence of some kind, it shouldn't be look at negatively. I would much rather read a set of simplified thoughts to get the idea of what the author wants to tell, and then go freelance the education if I enjoyed reading it. Reading overly complex subjective views feels like a cage to me.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

^ I agree I don't understand why people get their panties in a bunch over generalizations as long as it's understood to be taken lightly. I need generalizations to get the idea of something so I can construct models but never do I strictly stick to them.

 

[walfin]

T women can also seem even harder than the male stereotype though, and surely this can't be accounted for by hormones alone since some of them have extremely feminine bodies.

I posit that this has something to do with feeling emotion more strongly.

 

[cheese]

^Interesting thought. I meant colder though, as in even less emotional, and less empathetic. Not 'mean' or anything that might spring from an emotional impulse.

 

[IfloatTHRUlife]

Damn you cheese, as soon as i saw what Cog was talking about in his post i planned on speaking of hormones.

How dare you beat me to this thread, and even give interesting support of your idea.

To add something though, there is also probably something to be said of simple instinct. Subconsciously all men are looking for a woman who is most suitable for mating, this is why the women men most often see as being attractive is easily stereotyped. This supports Cog saying that men tend to have more superficial thoughts. Women on the other hand look for a mate who can protect and support her, which in todays society, can be anyone depending on what the woman wants. While this probably isnt direct support that women are neccesarily more emotional than men, or that they are more stimulated by emotion, but more simply their focus is more personal and important instead of being superficial, which could make them seem more emotional in their actions. This means little in situations not including male/female interaction i suppose, but i still thought it was worth mentioning.

 

[Cognisant]

Well said.

Women on the other hand look for a mate who can protect and support her

Not necessarily, remember evolution and intelligent design are two very different processes, human instincts are just the result of what happens to be successful and what doesn’t, thus women and men are possessed of certain biases which produces behavioural patterns which we generalise by saying men want this and women want that, there are no innate goals or anything of that sort.

 

[IfloatTHRUlife]

It was meant to be taken lightly of course. Humans are obviously more driven by our thoughts and feelings than any instinct. I was just saying that men and women are subconsciously driven to certain things, leading to tendencies that we would percieve and mistake as women being emotional.

The bit i said about women does seem kind of unsupported though, like i said, in todays society women dont neccessarily need support or protection, leaving their prefrences more open and making the "instinct" i described kind of irrelevant in however many women.

 

[SpaceYeti]

An ideal? ROFL

This isn't an ideal, it's an observation, go watch a chick-flick for fucksake.
Then go watch an action movie like Doom which personally I loved.

Tell me, which is inane?
Is it not a matter of perspective?

Of course I'm not saying all males would like Doom and that all females like chick-flicks, but there's no denying which way the numbers go.

To be fair, Doom was inane. It was simply also entertaining.

Edit: Oh, and; my impression of a chick flick;

Chick; I've been hurt in the past
Dude; I'm surprisingly charming and unbelievably incapable of hurting you.
Chick; I'm skeptical.
Dude; *Smile*
Chick; *Swoon*
*montage o' happiness*
Dude; Oops, something happened that made me seem ultimately untrustworthy!
Chick; I don't trust you and I won't listen to you explain what happened.
Dude; Dang, I loved her and was so romantic I'd never ask to put it in her butt.
Chick; *Cry*
Chicks friend; I'm elucidating the truth of the matter!
Chick; Oh, I should have listened!
Dude; I'm your bitch and will not be angry that you didn't listen to me!
*Happily ever after*

 

[Melllvar]

I realize this isn't what this thread is for, but...

Doom? Really?

The original computer game actually had a better story than the movie. And that's saying something considering that it barely had any story at all. It's almost like they made some other zombie movie and then said, "You know what? This movie sucks. Let's call it Doom so all the old school PC gamers will go see it anyway."

I can't comment on men and women. The last time I was involved in a thread like that things went pretty bad. But that was mostly Smeagle's fault, so maybe things will be different this time around.

 

[Cognisant]

Was it really? (the Doom movie, inane)

Sure it was more focused on the combat than the drama, but it was a homage to a 90s FPS game and the relationship between the protagonist and his sister was interesting, not to mention the [SPOILER ALERT] the sergeant becoming the main antagonist when from the start it looked like he was supposed to be the protagonist. Overall the movie may have been neither realistic or symbolic enough to be considered deep and meaningful, but the crux of the moral conflict over the use and abuse of technology and the power it grants us really spoke to me.

The meaning of the story: Power doesn’t corrupt, it just brings out our true nature.

And molecular flux doors are awesome

The original computer game actually had a better story than the movie.

Bah, dude goes into hell and beats up demons, that's not a story, although I can understand why it's cathartic to people who live in a largely Christian society and have been brought up to fear the potential horror in every shadow.

The Diablo series was popular for the same reason.
Aside from being really fun to play.

 

[Jennywocky]

Somewhat of a tangent, but I'll try to add stuff at the end to pull it back...

In all the accounts of transsexual women (ie M-to-F) I've read, taking hormones has significantly affected their mood/emotions/mental experience (and even tactile sensation) - generally through increasing the frequency and intensity of emotion. And these are people who already identify as that gender, who take hormones to establish physical change.

Which is typically true.

M2F, especially with progesterone tossed into the mix with anti-androgens and estrogen, results not only in increased emotional and tactile response (i.e., the body/skin becomes far more sensitive and thus a new input of stimuli from the external environment), but an automatic connection between the body and emotions. For example, you might now burst into momentary uncontrollable tears over things that might have bothered you before but that your body seemed to remain numb to.

Hormones are one way a transsexual "validates" the change -- if someone hates what hormones are generally doing to them rather than it feeling like a positive experience, then probably HRT and surgery is a lousy move.

And the quote above is taken from a man who (apparently) did not identify as female, but was confused and rushed into surgery.

That sucks, it's impossible to put scrambled eggs back in their shell. That's why the therapists are supposed to be doing their job screening people, although there's quite a number of avenues out there nowadays for people to dodge the hoops they're supposed to leap through.

I dunno. The physical environment (ie the body) really does seem to affect the mind and the way it experiences life. Another interesting fact: apparently a significant portion of transsexuals inadvertently reverses sexual orientation after transitioning (ie a physically male, 'heterosexual' person exclusively interested in females, after transitioning to female, becomes a heterosexual female - ie exclusively interested in males).

In my experience, the stats for the "formerly straight" (i.e., was in relationships with the opposite of their birth gender) seem to be:

F2Ms: Typically maintain their sex interest. In fact, a lot of F2Ms get to the point of realizing they are trans by identifying as butch lesbians first -- then they realize they're actually men, not butch females.

M2Fs: Typically end up 33% straight, 33% lesbian, and 33% bi.

Preference is kind of tricky because we have no way to knowing what someone's "true preference" is. What looks like a change might just be an embrace of what was formerly rejected for various reasons. Remember that with transsexuals, self-identity is essential; an M2F is typically not going to want to be with guys if they are still living as males, since they don't consider themselves gay but women, and any guy who is into someone who is living as a guy is likely gay and thus the relationship still screams "guy guy guy" at the M2F.

To put it another way, an M2F might have been more into guys all along, and was with women only for the need for emotional closeness and social availability and family-building; but once the physical transition is over, a relationship with a man will affirm the M2F's femaleness as well as be acceptable to a heteronormative culture.

But also, Thinking women are supposed to be a minority... I wonder what the hormonal differences (if any) would be between them and F women, and them and T men. Hey, this is suddenly a really intriguing question.

From dealing with other T women, I'm going to guess that either their testo is higher than normal or that their estro is lower (or something that reduces the effectiveness). On those digit-ratio tests, it's fairly common to see T women with median lengths more resembling men.

Hmm, but since TS people have to take hormones in excess of the amount a body would usually produce in order to counteract their own natural ones, perhaps their experiences aren't useful data. Anyway, their brain make-up would probably be different to the cisgendered person.

Based on research over the last twenty years (all available via Google, if you look for it), the brain structures are more similar to the target gender than to their original gender.

Google Dr. Sidney Ecker for some relevant links. Dr. Ecker has been trying to pull together all the gender-brained research in the last twenty years or more (including Milt Diamond's research) into a single document.

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=157B6FB9F8828BCF49FD0F9D01A295F9?diaryId=11113

Anyway, I think with T women, there seems to be more protection against emotional impulses / more control over mood swings (well, if the woman in question desires it -- some of the ETJs can become real bitchy), a more detached approach to problem-solving, more focus on goals rather than interactions, more focus on detached rationality than maintaining the relational aspects. For some T women, especially the TPs, I think the flexy P leaves more openness to accommodate reactions from having female physiology and being reared as a woman, while still maintaining one's more detached personality. I've met some really strong TP women who seem to be able to do everything to some degree -- and even appreciate the more "feminine stereotype" and emotionality if they do not share it per se.

For me, I have a typically T approach but some F-style needs that don't tend to get met because of my T-style thinking and approach. I've found I've really liked it when a guy

Was it really? (the Doom movie, inane)

Sure it was more focused on the combat than the drama, but it was a homage to a 90s FPS game and the relationship between the protagonist and his sister was interesting, not to mention the [SPOILER ALERT] the sergeant becoming the main antagonist when from the start it looked like he was supposed to be the protagonist. Overall the movie may have been neither realistic or symbolic enough to be considered deep and meaningful, but the crux of the moral conflict over the use and abuse of technology and the power it grants us really spoke to me.

The meaning of the story: Power doesn’t corrupt, it just brings out our true nature.

And molecular flux doors are awesome


Bah, dude goes into hell and beats up demons, that's not a story, although I can understand why it's cathartic to people who live in a largely Christian society and have been brought up to fear the potential horror in every shadow.

The Diablo series was popular for the same reason.
Aside from being really fun to play.

Oh... and here *I* was worried about contributing to a tangent!

EDIT:
Saw these today too. Coincidence or not?
http://yahoo.match.com/y/article.aspx?articleid=12153

http://yahoo.match.com/magazine/arti...rticleid=12154

 

[Cognisant]

Coincidence or not?

You had toast for breakfast.

 

[IfloatTHRUlife]

You had toast for breakfast.

*Cackle*

 

[Jennywocky]

You had toast for breakfast.

Bagel.
(And Fruit Loops for a before-dinner snack!)



MUA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

 

[DarkGreen]

O_O U gaiz are so weird

 

[Cognisant]

Thank you.

 

[Jennywocky]

O_O U gaiz are so weird

...You just don't understand our JEAN-YUS!!!

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I am asexual, by the way

A sexual what? monster? beast? predator?

 

[Incessantly Introspective]

A sexual what? monster? beast? predator?

Not "a sexual", but "asexual"; please see :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexuality
I am beginning to regret making my post. Always the delete option I suppose

 

[EyeSeeCold]

[bimgx=http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/f/f2/Trollface_More_HD.png]http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/f/f2/Trollface_More_HD.png[/bimgx]

Spoiler

btw, your avatar is my background